Happy thoughts

By John FischerStaff writer

Posted 12/17/08

Why, every time people discuss change within the country, are they appalled at the best ideas and possibilities?

When you mention regulating corporations, so these multi-million dollar companies like GM and AIG and all the of other places that so many Americans have become dependent on don’t cause a crisis like the one going on now, the first thing that comes out of everyone’s mouth is socialist or communist.

The same can be said for taxes, the justice system, government-funded businesses and other political topics, or problems, as I like to say.

All of these systems need immediate attention but, most likely, we’ll never see the day when it happens. In my opinion, the entire governmental system and a lot of the constitution need revising. Times are different now. Things our forefathers included, or didn’t include, in the constitution are just a big run around when trying to make changes for the better and most of the time the constitution ends up being a wall for good change instead of bad.

I’m not talking about the values or freedoms held sacred in the constitution. I’m talking about equality and fairness being just as important as freedom. I’m saying some of the things that were necessary in 1776 aren’t necessary for today and vice-versa.

Complete freedom in business is a ludicrous idea. It’s outdated. Most corporations nowadays affect too many lives, directly and indirectly. Most big-name corporations have paid its CEO’s and executives unreal amounts of money, amounts I don’t even care to know or research. Their unions, along with a lot of other small business unions in the United States, have made it almost impossible for any realistic employee guidelines and/or salaries.

Just the other day, while attending an Arenac County Board of Commissioners (BOC) meeting, the topic of personal heaters came up. Now, for those of you who don’t already know, Arenac County just invested $450,000 into the windows, heating and electrical systems and air conditioning units of the Arenac County Building. And now, employees don’t want to give up their personal heaters even though a great amount of money was spent so that sort of thing wouldn’t be necessary. The BOC have backed down on their ban of personal heaters. The reason? Some employees complained like a bunch of preteen little girls that if the heat went out one day and they didn’t have their heaters, they would expect to be sent home and paid for the day even though they didn’t work.

Come again?

An employee expects to not work and be paid for it. What a ridiculous statement. And of course, the BOC weren’t going to do that, so they withdrew the ban. This sort of thing is regular practice with unions. Another complaint claimed it was inhumane to not allow someone a personal heater.

NO…inhumane is paying $450,000 and having employees whine about being too cold. Running up the electric bill in such a manner would have grandparents rolling over in their grave.

I have another suggestion. Put on a long sleeve shirt or something. Put a coat on. Any job I’ve ever worked at hasn’t been to my perfect liking but I dealt with it. It wasn’t even an issue for me. And it shouldn’t be for them either. I just read the other day, on cnn.com, about one of the Wall Street bank’s CEO requesting a $15 million dollar bonus because he helped keep the company’s losses to a minimum. To me, that shows the greed and corruption too many corporations and Wall Street executives have exemplified over the years. But they have their unions, so they can make ridiculous demands like that.

In addition, these corporations that hold thousands of retirees’ 401K plans and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA’s) can do whatever they please with their company. They can liquidate it anytime they feel. They can run it into the ground a la Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers and screw thousands of middle to lower class citizens over. But try to put some strict enforcement codes or committees to oversee these companies and what do you get? Analysts/conservatives on Fox News (Bill O’ Reilly, Ann Coulter, etc.) calling you a terrorist, communist, socialist, anti-American and whatever other name in the book they can try to deceive the American viewer with.

It seems to me if something is corrupt and people can’t be trusted by the general American public, people shouldn’t have a problem with the government stepping in to ENSURE fairness and equality.

Another problem we’re faced with is regulating the outsourcing of American jobs. But ask yourself, why would a company produce a product in the United States with employees earning $25/hour when you can do it in China for 75 cents an hour? I sure wouldn’t. You can call these companies anti-American if you want to but it’s sheer economics. They have millions of dollars, you have don’t. It’s ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS. And right now, America isn’t the place to make any.

How do you fix this?

By taxing imported goods and products made outside of the U.S. along with United States based companies that outsource plants and jobs to other countries. If we think we’re the world leader then we should have no trouble putting big taxes on the products coming in. This would force the businesses shipping jobs out of the country to build their products here and ship them out instead.

The justice system is another faulty system. “Innocent until proven Guilty”. The biggest lie anyone has ever told. The justice system doesn’t work for crap. Once a criminal always a criminal. At least that’s what statistics show. You can be drunk as a skunk, crash your car into a school, kill a kid and be out in two months. But if you fight dogs, you’ll be thrown in a cell for two years. Where is the consistency? You can’t possibly tell me any amount of dogs is worth more than the life of a human. Yet you can literally get away with murder if you have money.

Police are supposed to be here to protect and serve us but kids nowadays are growing up thinking police are bad people and they’re out to get you. And I can’t always blame them. I’ve been put in situations where I felt like I was singled out because I was a young white male. I’ve been pulled over and had a 20-minute search conducted on my car for no reason. Not all cops are like that, in fact, most aren’t. But, their doing creates a lot of the trouble.

I blame the problems on education. How can citizens be expected to follow laws when they have no idea about those laws? Law, government and the rules of society aren’t classes taught in our schools. I believe I had one semester in high school on government. You can’t learn the things you need to know in one semester. Schools need to educate the children about laws and punishments and then maybe you’ll start to see changes in crime trends. You see it all the time. Someone gets convicted of a crime they didn’t know was a crime. Teach it and we’ll know it.

Regardless, the whole system needs an overhaul and I don’t think it will happen because our public finances depend on people being locked up.

Recently, while researching a story for this paper I was informed of penal fines and how they were earmarked. Not for the courts, not for police enforcement, but for libraries. What pays for immunizations for babies and health care? The sin tax. Talk about an oxy-moron. The government needs to just wipe out all these stupid little tax collections like state tax, sales tax, sin tax, Medicare tax, Social Security and all the rest of them. Just take 15% out of everybody’s paycheck and earmark these programs from one big pot of trillions of dollars. Then you wouldn’t have to move all this money from a general fund to a fund that can only be spent on office supplies to a fund for healthcare and all of this whole stupid drawn out process. With 354,000,000 adults in America averaging $45,000 per person in wages per year equals out to be about $14 trillion dollars. If the only taxes you had to pay out of your paycheck were 15%, that would be a far less amount of money than you’re currently paying I bet, in fact, I’m sure of it. But they would actually be able to be used right. Then maybe we could see a universal health care so everybody can live (something nobody should have to pay for; talk about your rights being taken away). Much easier.

I mean wouldn’t it be nice to have all necessary health care be free like it should, entitlement to more of your paycheck, a justice system that worked and businesses regulated so they can’t ruin millions of people’s lives? I’m just saying times now are different than they were in 1776, just as they won’t be the same in 2276. Change is inevitable. The only thing you can control is whether that change is good or bad. The people in this country holding us back need to figure that out.

But none of these things I’m requesting will probably ever happen because politicians are morons, people are morons and apparently equal rights doesn’t matter because you’d rather see the richest 1% of this country run and control EVERYTHING.